HSU to pursue money if Thomson guilty

HEALTH Services Union (HSU) President Chris Brown says the union will try to recover up to half-a-million dollars from embattled MP Craig Thomson if he is found guilty of fraud.

Thomson has been granted bail after being charged with 149 counts of fraud by police at Wyong on the NSW central coast on Thursday.

He denies being guilty of any of them and will travel to Melbourne next Wednesday to appear in court and defend the charges.

The federal independent MP was arrested at his electorate office in Tuggerah, on Thursday, under a warrant from Victoria Police.

Mr Brown told the ABC on Thursday he did not expect the court action to be finalised before the end of the year.

In a parallel case, former HSU national president Michael Williamson was last year charged with 48 offences relating to allegations he misused more than $500,000 during his time at the union.

Mr Brown said an administrator brought into the union had already initiated action to have funds returned in the Thomson case but no doubt further claims would be made.

Mr Brown said the union had received advice that it would be able to recover a large amount of money if not all of the funds from Thomson if he was found guilty.

That could be somewhere between a quarter and half-a-million dollars, he said.

Mr Brown said that around 10 per cent of members, around 12,000 to 13,000, had left the union because of the scandals, but 90 per cent had stayed on and he was sure they would regain their confidence in the union.

The court cases would be "an important part of our healing" and of allowing the union to move forward, he said.

"An important part of us being able to move forward is that people are being held to account for what they have done. They haven't got away with it scot free."

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